Pollen lightens the book with some of his personal experiences that attempt to be funny. At one point, he mentions that his son was baffled when he asked what his son thought was a stupid question; and to which his son responded with “a wizened two-syllable duh” (Pollen 112). In another example in the book, he mentions the possibility of dying from hypothermia or man-eating sharks, and everyone knows how funny that can be. Pollen does well in talking about the people he meets and the help he gets throughout the book to try to make his work feel completely organic.